Social Policy, Inequality, and Development: Notes on Brazil in the First Decade of the 21st Century

In the first decade of the 21st century, Brazil made important social progress. This chapter supports the hypothesis that the key factors in achieving such progress were economic growth and improved coordination between economic and social objectives, all in a favorable international context. After over two decades, growth reclaimed space on the macroeconomic agenda, consequently driving social spending and the labor market, also potentializing the redistributive effects of Social Security as established in the 1988 Constitution.